


Small Beautiful Moments

by leopardonkilimanjaro (ourobsessions)



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Nightmares, just a lot of corny fluff, small children love dogs, sort of a family AU, surprise babysitters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 00:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21065918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourobsessions/pseuds/leopardonkilimanjaro
Summary: For @hana_ichiban on Twitter as part of @lovingtaeonmain's Banana Fish Gift Exchange.  Ash and Eiji end up taking care of Michael's daughter for the weekend.  Eiji just thinks Ash is beautiful inside and out.





	Small Beautiful Moments

Eiji thought that Ash was a beautiful person. He never said so, because Ash had been told that too many times by too many horrible men who used his beauty against him, and because Eiji still didn’t feel like he had the language to distinguish his feelings in a meaningful way—that when he said it, it applied to all of Ash, body and soul and humanity, and not just to his mortal cage. Over a decade had passed since he had moved to America for good (for Ash), and his English was nearly on par with his mother tongue, but he still struggled with nuance and emotion sometimes. 

Even though he felt a little guilty about it, he couldn’t help gazing at his boyfriend as they drank their morning coffee together, or as they read on the couch, Ash deep in thought over a new social sciences book he’d picked up and Eiji pretending to pay attention to whatever new bestselling novel had caught his eye. Eiji’s mind wandered as he did, producing ridiculous questions. Eiji was pretty good at keeping them to himself, but sometimes, he couldn’t help but ask them—like the chilly autumn night when he and Ash were snuggled into one another under their covers, half-asleep, when he asked, “Ash, if we could have children, what do you think they would look like?”

Ash was silent for a moment, but then he said, “I hope that they would look nothing like me, and entirely like you.” 

Eiji let out a quiet breath. “Well, I hope that they’d get a little something from you. I wouldn’t want people to think that you weren’t their father, too.” He wanted to say that he’d love to see a little one with Ash’s green eyes against Eiji’s jet-black hair, or Ash’s blonde locks atop Eiji’s rounder face. A perfect combination of their looks.

“Nah,” Ash said. “My looks have gotten me into too much trouble over the years. No kid needs that kind of attention. There was a beat of silence—plenty of time for Eiji’s chest to grow heavy with the weight of Ash’s past, a weight that he couldn’t lift from either of them, no matter how hard he tried. Ash once told him that it was enough that Eiji was himself, but Eiji couldn’t believe that, because if he was enough to help as he was, then Ash shouldn’t have nightmares when he slept next to Eiji, and shouldn’t startle at loud, sharp noises when Eiji was by his side, and shouldn’t feel the need to accompany Eiji whenever he went out, in case something were to happen to him. 

“Hmm…” Ash’s hum pulled Eiji back into the present. “On second thought, they had better get my height. Wouldn’t want them to deal with being a squirt like you all their lives.”

“Pah,” Eiji scoffed. “I see. Then I will be stuck with more sarcastic butts always hiding things from me on high shelves. I guess I will just have to make natto for breakfast every morning for the rest of our lives.”

“Oh, God, no!” Ash said with true worry in his voice. Then, he rolled into Eiji to press a kiss to his temple, before settling back down. “My luck is that our hypothetical kid would inherit your tastebuds, and I would be the only person being punished.” Eiji giggled. “Why are you thinking about kids, anyway? Do you have something you need to tell me?” Ash drawled before squeezing Eiji’s stomach.

Eiji grabbed Ash’s hand and threw it gently back. “That tickles! I was just wondering.” Then, he murmured, “I think you’d be a great father.”

“Honestly, I think I would, too.”

“Huh!” That answer genuinely surprised Eiji. 

“Not that I haven’t had a lot of experience taking care of kids in a normal family setting,” Ash continued, “but I think I’ve seen enough examples of what not to do as a parent that anything I do will be great by comparison.” He chuckled dryly, humorlessly. 

Eiji rolled over and pulled Ash into him, tucking Ash’s head into his shoulder. “Any child would be so lucky to have such a doting father,” he whispered. Ash didn’t respond, and after a few moments, Eiji murmured, “Good night, I love you,” and closed his eyes, hoping that tonight would be a night of easy dreams for the man he loved.

*****

Eiji left before Ash woke up the next morning, a Friday, for an early magazine ad photoshoot, but he made sure to put a bowl of shrimp and avocado salad in the fridge for his breakfast, along with a properly embarrassing love note, the kind that Eiji left every morning without fail and that Ash pretended he didn’t keep in a notebook in his sock drawer. The shoot was fairly easy, but cold, and Eiji felt confident and eager to return home as soon as it wrapped up, hoping that Ash wouldn’t be too busy with his private detective work to indulge Eiji in a few hours of watching movies on the couch. Eiji came home, to a commotion, though—Ash arguing with a young couple, and a tiny girl with bright red hair chasing their dog Buddy around the sidewalk in front of their brownstone. The man with the ponytail looked familiar… 

Suddenly, the man turned to Eiji, and said, “Eiji, please, I need your help! Can you watch Elise for the weekend?” 

“Ah!” Eiji said. “Hello, Michael! And hello, Colleen!” He bowed his head to Michael’s wife. Max and Jessica’s son was already married and had a daughter, which both Ash and Eiji found difficult to believe. It was hard not to look at him and see the child they met that terrifying night so long ago, but at the same time, they were both so proud of the man he was becoming. The fact that he was a journalist who married a photographer, too, was deeply amusing to Ash. “What’s going on now?”

“Mom and Dad both got called away on assignment this morning, and Colleen’s parent are out of the state, so we need a babysitter,” Michael explained apologetically. “We have an important assignment this weekend that we can’t break, too. Do you guys have anything pressing going on? If not, can you watch her?”

“I said that I don’t want her to be put into danger if I get a job,” said Ash. “This is the kind of thing we have to plan for. I don’t even know if Alex is available, or Bones or Kong or somebody, in case I get pulled away.” 

“But you don’t have a job right now, and my weekend is free, aside from developing this photos,” Eiji said. “I don’t see why we can’t.” Ash looked at him sternly, and Eiji met his gaze with equal strength.

“If I have to leave—”

“Then I can hold down the fort.” When he wasn’t learning things in an emergency situation, it turned out that Eiji was a half-decent shot and could hold his own in a fight, and Ash knew it. He made Ash teach him self-defense when he moved back to the States, to be as much help to Ash that he could, even though Ash protested long and hard about it. Besides, it had been years since anyone had tried to go after Ash or Eiji, something that Eiji thanked any gods listening for every day. 

“We don’t have anything for her, though,” Ash said. 

“We brought all of her supplies,” Colleen said. “I wrote up a list of instructions, too. Favorite foods, things like that. Elise is a good girl, and she likes you both.” At the sound of her name, the little girl wandered over, Buddy at her side. Buddy flopped over for a belly rub, and Elise crouched down to oblige. 

“I love this dog, Eiji,” she said seriously.

He smiled. “Buddy loves you, too. How old are you now, Elise?”

She paused to hold up four fingers, and Eiji shook his head in genuine amazement. 

“I can’t believe you already have a four-year-old kid, Michael,” Ash said. 

Michael laughed a little. “We can hardly believe it, either,” he said. “She’s growing like a weed.”

“Well, Elise,” Eiji said, crouching down next to her and the dog. “Would you mind spending the weekend with me and Ash and Buddy?” 

“Yeah!” She didn’t hesitate for a second.

Eiji smiled up at Ash. “You heard the young lady,” he said, and Ash rolled his eyes.

“I guess this is how it is,” he said. “Where’s her stuff?” After profuse thanks from Colleen and Michael, Elise was ushered into the house with the dog, and Eiji and Ash toted her snack bag, overnight bag, and toy bag from Colleen and Michael’s station wagon. Then, there were many kisses and hugs and platitudes from the parents to their daughter, and then they were gone, and suddenly, Ash and Eiji had a little girl to entertain. 

“Wow,” Elise said, spotting Eiji’s slide projector. “Show me your pictures!” 

And that was how the weekend started. While Ash read, Eiji showed Elise slide after slide, from landscapes to fashion shoots to casual pictures of Ash. At one picture, in which Ash was laying on the beach at Cape Cod under an umbrella, Elise said, “That looks like a picture from one of Jessica’s magazines.”

“You call your grandma Jessica?” Ash asked.

“Yes, ‘cause that’s her name,” Elise said. “And Grandpa is Grandpa because he isn’t hip.”

“And… did Jessica say that?” 

“Yes,” Elise said proudly. 

“And… she’s shown you some of the pictures she’s taken?”

“Yeah, but not a lot. Grandpa says I can see the rest when I’m older. Do you know why, Ash?”

“Because she takes a lot of pictures of people without any clothes on.”

“ASH!” Eiji hissed. But Elise looked disappointed.

“Really? That’s gross,” she said, frowning. “I like pictures of people with pretty clothes on better. Show me more pictures like that, Eiji.”

Eiji raised his eyebrows at Ash as he switched to a ring of slides with pictures from a glamour shoot he’d done. As Elise oohed and aahed over the pictures, Ash shrugged and said, “I didn’t want to lie to her. You shouldn’t lie to kids.”

“I see,” Eiji said, thinking about all the times he’d lied to his little sister, and how betrayed she’d felt when she found out the truth. Well, it’s pretty much an older brother’s job to give his younger sibling hell, so he supposed that that counted a little less, but it still made him think.

“Also, I can’t wait to hear what Jessica thinks about her granddaughter calling her career gross,” Ash said, smirking into his book. Eiji rolled his eyes.

The rest of the evening proceeded without incident—even dinnertime—and Ash and Eiji collapsed into bed after tucking Elise into the bed in the guest room with Buddy at her side. She was a very well-behaved young lady, and Eiji took joy in seeing Ash and Elise interact, especially because Ash talked to her like he talked to Eiji—like an adult, with lots of good-natured teasing thrown in. Eiji fell asleep looking forward to Saturday’s adventures. But in the middle of the night, Eiji awoke to discover that he was alone in his bed. Ash wasn’t sitting by the window as he often did when he had had a nightmare, nor was he in the office at his computer. Eiji padded towards the guest room, and he saw Ash sitting on the bed, holding Elise close. He also heard crying. Ah. Eiji quietly leaned against the doorframe, careful not to let Elise know he was there.

“Do you want to talk about what happened in your dream?” Ash murmured.

Elise hiccupped a couple of times, then said, “I don’t know. I always dream about Mom and Dad going away and not coming back. Grandpa… sometimes he goes away for work and doesn’t come back for a long time, and he got really hurt once.” She started crying again. “I don’t want Dad to get hurt.”

“When your grandpa got hurt, he also helped a lot of people with his story, right?” Ash said. There was silence, but Eiji assumed that Elise had nodded, because Ash said, “That’s right. He gets into a lot of danger, but he always does it for a good cause. He… he got into a lot of danger because of me, when I was younger. He was hurt. But because of it, he saved a lot of kids and took down some really terrible people.”

“He helped you?”

“Yeah,” Ash murmured. “And I’m sure that your mom and dad are helping people, too, with the work that they do. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you that they won’t get hurt, but I hope it helps you to know that.”

More silence. Maybe she nodded again. Ash said, “Do you want me to stay with you?” 

A small voice said, “I’m okay. Buddy is here.”

“Okay.” Ash leaned over to kiss her on the head, and Eiji returned to their room. Ash returned a few moments later and said, “You could have come in.”

“That’s okay,” Eiji said. “I didn’t want to risk her getting more upset. I thought you were handling it well. Were you awake because of a nightmare, too?”

Ash got into bed and rolled back against Eiji. “Not tonight, surprisingly. I heard her crying.”

“She’s only four, and she’s worrying about all of the adults in her life already,” Eiji murmured, settling back against Ash. “I wonder if they know.”

“I hope so.”

“Let’s show her a good time this weekend, okay? Take her somewhere fun,” Eiji said. “Maybe down to the park with Buddy.”

“She does love that dog,” Ash chuckled. 

Soon, Ash’s breathing had slowed and evened, and Eiji knew he was asleep. He smiled, and decided that tonight was a night for a very small risk, as he whispered, “Good night, my beautiful Ash.”


End file.
